White Flag
by EchidnaHazard
Summary: Named after the Dido song, and partially inspired by it, another RedPurple shounen-ai. (The SAness in later chapters. Be patient, people.)
1. Default Chapter

Later, there would be an inquiry as to what exactly the weapon was, and how it was capable of unleashing so much power in one fell swoop. Later, the scientists in their sterile laboratories would attempt to isolate the fusion techniques that allowed the opposing race to fire the pure energy of Tachion beams at their foes.  
  
Then, though, there was only noise, smoke and confusion.  
  
On the deck of the Battle Bridge, Tallest Red glanced up from his seated position as the Massive shuddered. It took a lot of power to make the mightiest ship in the Irken Empire do so much as dim its lights, let alone be forcibly moved.  
  
"What was that?" He inquired.  
  
Many of the Irken soldiers were busy at their command stations, but one, a bright-eyed young male, turned, "Not enough information to judge yet, Almighty, but I'd say we're under attack."  
  
He did not seem especially bothered, Red thought. He shouldn't have been. The Massive was the most heavily armored, doubly reinforced, energy-cell powered ship in the entire fleet. There was nothing to be worried about, really.  
  
"Well...make sure." Red returned to glancing down at the book he was reading: '1984'. An interesting outlook on society, even if the author was a worthless human.  
  
He fancied himself much like the Big Brother in the story. The only problem being that he had a twin in the rulership. Purple, of the exact same height, ruled next to him with equal power.  
  
They tried, though the idea was unspoken, not to disagree. That hurt both of them and helped neither.  
  
Red couldn't know about the explosion in the engine of deck thirteen; couldn't know about the fires, the screaming and death as the section that was rapidly collapsing was cut off from the rest of the ship to keep out the heartless vacuum of space. The pounding fists of the engineers on the sealed doors, as they actually heard the molecular integrity of their surroundings collapsing in on them like a house of cards.  
  
But something made him uneasy, nonetheless. He book-marked the page he was on, glanced back up, and made a noise in the back of his throat.  
  
A few of the unoccupied Irkens turned their heads to meet his gaze, then quickly looked away.  
  
"Anything yet?" he asked, a dangerous note to his voice.  
  
"Deck thirteen has collapsed." The same soldier said, typing rapidly and calling up more information, "The strike crippled the ninth section of our engines. We've lost seven hundred engineers."  
  
"Is it sealed off?" Not a flicker of emotion crossed Red's face, only the coldly calculating snake's eyes, figuring out his own survival first, his company's second.  
  
"...No way to tell yet..." There was a long pause, during which the entire bridge seemed to hold its breath, "Affirmative. The deck has been sealed."  
  
Red grimaced, and his eyes flicked to the empty command chair next to his. Purple was back on Irk, overseeing a reconstruction effort. That meant whatever Red decided to do here was his own choice, and would not be challenged.  
  
"Find the enemy ship that fired on us." Red murmured, clicking the claws of his right hand against his left arm.  
  
"It is to the left of..." The soldier never managed to finish the sentence. A second strike arced from the enemy cannon and drowned out his words.  
  
Alarm klaxons began to blare, Red shouted to try to be heard over them, stumbled and floated back a step, then whipped around, much too late, to see an opposing alien race who called themselves the Trill hopping over the bridge, heading right for him. Their leader, with a large wolf-like snout and greedy, intelligent eyes, slammed a clawed fist into Red's face, and the Almighty Tallest crumpled to the ground, his vision going black. 


	2. On Irk

Almighty Tallest Purple sniffed, his eyes alternately closing and then snapping open again, in an attempt to look alertly at the droning official.  
  
He tried to focus on the words, but it seemed the speaker was talking in some alien language, and no matter how much effort he put forth, nothing made sense. Purple found his gaze drifting downward to the cold metal floor under the seat in the auditorium. Someone in the assembly coughed, and the noise echoed in the large structure.  
  
Purple allowed his thoughts to turn to Red, his twin in-command; always ready to have some fun, reluctant to take on any of the boring jobs like he himself was doing.  
  
When asked to attend the reconstruction speech of Irk, Red not only declined, but made up an excuse to patrol a completely isolated sector of space, almost as far away from Irk as he could get without bringing along the Armada to guard him.  
  
Since one of the Tallest had to be in attendance, it left Purple with precious little choice but to come along. He stifled a yawn, looking around self consciously to see if anyone had noticed him, but as far as he could tell they had been driven into a coma-like stupor by the speech, and none of them were awake enough to do more than sit upright.  
  
His stomach gurgled, protesting the fifty or so caramels he had 'borrowed' from Red's personal snack stash, and he suddenly felt an undeniable thirst rise up. He cleared his throat in an attempt to ignore the dryness in it, but that only served to increase the feeling. Purple stood up, scowling.  
  
He was one of the most powerful figures in the Irken Empire: let them think what they wanted. He exited, being neither flamboyant nor discreet about leaving, and as the double-doors swung shut behind him, heaved a sigh of relief.  
  
The white, cold halls had never seemed so inviting as he headed down them, glad for the silence after what seemed like an eternity of meaningless speech. He passed the control room, then paused and returned to the doorway, watching. Something seemed very wrong; some kind of sixth sense, a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
The screens were mostly static, but the main one was flickering in and out, and speech was cutting through it in rapid bursts. "....-crackle-... had to... -re crippled... SOS.... SOS...-kkkrrt-"  
  
The image on the screen resolved itself, and Purple pressed both hands to his mouth to bite back the unprofessional cry of alarm. A bleeding Irken soldier was sitting on the chair in front of the transmitter, swaying from side to side as though he was about to pass out at any moment. Nasty gashes covered whatever parts of him could be seen, and as the Tallest watched, he coughed and continued resolutely to transmit.  
  
"...repeat... the Massive is..." Another huge, harsh burst of static, "Send help... SOS..."  
  
None of the Irkens of the room had noticed Purple yet, they were all intent on the screen, bombarding the wounded soldier with questions, inquiries; most predominately, his coordinates.  
  
The soldier rubbed his eyes for a second, tiredly, and turned back to what appeared to be a skewed view of the ruined bridge of the Massive. Fires leapt up here and there, merrily consuming plastic and fabrics. At least if the ship was burning it meant the atmosphere within remained intact... As his gaze settled on the screen anew, it was clear he was only sending and not receiving.  
  
"Please..." he said, grabbing hold of the keyboard in front of himself to steady his body, which was slowly betraying him, "Trill...breached..." More harsh static, "...took....Red..."  
  
Purple's eyes widened. He had to be seriously hurt indeed not to address Red by his proper title. It took the Tallest a second longer to realize the other implication of the four-word sentence.  
  
Then, merciful clarity as the screen swam into perfect reception, the Irken yelled, "We are at seventeen thirty four west, fifty eight north, star- cluster eighteen! Send help! SOS!!"  
  
At once, Purple saw what the others had missed, and screamed, "Look out!"  
  
The signal seemed to be sending now; the Irken soldier blinked, "My...Almighty?" he asked weakly, and then a look of sudden understanding snapped across his face. Far too late. One of several small fires had crept to the pipeline on the ceiling, and less than five seconds later, a roaring explosion cut the transmission to a brutal close.  
  
All the Irkens in the room had turned to look at the Tallest who was standing in the doorway. The majority of them waved their antennae in salute to him, a few whose hands were not otherwise occupied stood and saluted manually.  
  
"Locate the Massive's coordinates." Purple ordered in a clipped tone.  
  
"It's is in the near-vicinity of a nebulae-star-cluster, in close proximity to the Trill home-world." One of the soldiers responded almost instantaneously, tapping at his controls, "Their major life-supports seem to be failing."  
  
I could be on there. Purple thought with chilling clarity, or worse, taken by the Trill.  
  
The Trill had always been one of the Irkens' worst enemies-they alone detected Irkens no matter how cleverly they were concealed, they alone had technology and space-faring vessels to rival the Massive. If anyone, it was they who stood in the way of the Irken Empire's desire to rule every race in the universe. The Trill, above all others, also had that killer instinct, and they did not play fair.  
  
"Would you like us to send out Emergency Recovery Pods?" The same soldier asked him. Purple frowned.  
  
The situation was almost ludicrous. Would Purple like to send out pods in an attempt to rescue the honor guard of the only rival of his power? Red was a bully, and Purple usually ended up doing what he wanted, anyway. With him and his loyalist guards out of the way, the amethyst Tallest would be free to rule the Irken Empire as he so desired.  
  
There were, after all, only two ways to displace a Tallest from the throne- find another Irken who was taller, or kill the original. This was almost perfect; and nobody could fault him if he said it was too risky to try to recover anyone on the Massive.  
  
After all, soldiers could be recloned, the Irkens still had a leader in Purple, and the plans for the Massive were hardly a closely kept secret. Another could be built.  
  
"Mm..." Purple made a deliberating noise in the back of his throat, as though caught between choosing cereal or toast for breakfast. Lives hung in the balance, but these lives were not all that important in his grand scheme.  
  
Then, with startling suddenness, an image of Red flashed in Purple's mind... of building those puppets, of all the fun, insane little things they'd done together. Could Purple knowingly write off the one person he could have called 'friend', for the simple reason of the other being exactly the same height? It could get lonely at the top, if you were running an autocracy, after all.  
  
"Do it." Purple muttered, "And ready the closest ship we have in power and size to The Massive. I'm coming after Red." 


	3. Back With Red

Water dripped down, forming a puddle, and Red slowly came back to himself. He raised a clawed hand and gingerly touched his head. It throbbed somewhat, reminding him in a sudden burst all of what had transpired.  
  
Red scurried up to a sitting position, glancing down at himself. His clothes were soaked in grimy water, torn and so mutilated that they were almost unrecognizable as the uniform of an Almighty Tallest. Red groaned, shaking his head slightly. He wasn't used to dealing with pain for very long; whenever he had an ailment among the Irkens, their medical science leapt to his aid.  
  
"It's awake." A voice announced, and Red's eyes scanned the darkness. He was not yet frightened for himself, but his pain-dulled thinking was beginning to announce that there was a problem. Eyes of all shapes and colors glowed out of the dim surroundings.  
  
Red moved slightly, his back protesting at the idea of getting up, and his hand splashed in the filthy puddle. He withdrew it, wincing, and huddled back in the corner.  
  
He realized after a few moments that he was packed in with about twenty other species on a Trill slave-ship. Ever since the two warring organisms had independently discovered space travel, fights had taken a heavy toll on the Trill, who had no cloning systems, and they had been forced to capture other creatures to do their work for them.  
  
This awoke a glimmer of hope in Red: perhaps, just perhaps, they didn't realize who he was. This hope was frighteningly naïve, however. Ever since they had announced war on the Trill, Red and Purple had made public speaking appearances, Final Cannon Sweeps of the Trill's conquered planets, and numerous other places in which their identities would be recognized.  
  
Arrogant...they had been so arrogant to believe the Trill couldn't breach their warship while they were focused on the engine room malfunction.  
  
"It's the leader of the Irkensss..." Hissed a different voice, with malice, "The reason we are in this mess."  
  
Now fright began to play a part in Red's equations. He might be murdered before he even got to the planet Trillian, and then there would be no hope at all for rescue.  
  
"You would try to assign blame to those who battle our enslavers?" The first voice inquired. It seemed to emit from a pair of orangey eyes, a creature who seemed to be on Red's side.  
  
"Irk spy." The first voice accused.  
  
The orange eyes let it go, the owner of them flitting out from the shadows to reveal himself as a large, batlike creature with three sloping horns on its forehead, three front pawed arms, and three hind legs. The bat ears, wings and body fur were predominate, as well as the fangs protruding from the friendly grin. A sense of tentative balance seemed to emit from the creature as it walked forward, gangly paws splashing in the damp carpeting.  
  
"I am Prince Terra." The owner of the orange eyes murmured, "And you must be... Almighty Tallest Red."  
  
Red nodded uneasily. Irkens were not well liked amongst other species, especially since they had visions of conquering the omniverse, and were extremely arrogant, to boot. Still, perhaps another royalty figure would be understanding of his position.  
  
Terra bent low to the ground, his wings wrapping tightly around his body in an unusual alien gesture that Red did not recognize, and continued, "I am from the planet Nikka... one that fell under Irken rule two months ago."  
  
Red stiffened. So much for that hope. Terra would probably try to kill him for that affront. "I..." Red's diplomacy was severely lacking. He could think of nothing to say. Apologies for the Final Canon Sweep that probably slaughtered Terra's family? No, it would sound fake. It would BE fake.  
  
The prince seemed amused by Red's lack of articulation, smiling in a very Irken manner, "It appears that we are on level ground as far as power is concerned. I hate the Trill much more than you, and myself more than both for not mounting a ground defense in time to stop either of you."  
  
Red frowned, and spoke despite himself, "A ground defense against the Massive? A pea-shooter against Goliath..."  
  
"But it would have been something." Terra said sharply, his eyes flaring deep orange, "And you are in no position to boast the power of something that is no longer yours. The Trill have assimilated your Massive, taken captive all the Irken soldiers aboard it, and are repairing it...to fight your people."  
  
"Wha-what?!" Red stuttered, "That's impossi..." he trailed away. It was, indeed, possible, "Where are the rest of my people?"  
  
"Looking for allies in a sea of hostiles?" The prince asked, flapping his wings and lifting himself off the ground a little, "That is refreshing naïveté, Almighty."  
  
Red's eyes became a little pleading, "Tell me if you know. Where are they? And where are we?"  
  
"They are probably planetside already. They took a detour, from what I've overheard of the guards' scuttlebutt. We are aboard the Slave-Ship Fourteen Ten."  
  
The Tallest stood at last, feeling the aches and pains all over himself, and looked eye to eye with Terra. Used to towering over people, Red disliked this new sensation.  
  
Terra turned to the shadows, "No need to fear him, Hel. He's not dangerous."  
  
A snake's head reared from the darkness, followed by a largely muscled Velociraptor's body, with the feathered tail of a bird. An unusual cross mutation, Hel was a species that Red recognized: the Ragnarok, bird/reptile hybrids from the planet of the same name.  
  
"I do not fear Almighty Tallest Red." Hel snarled, "Despise, deplore, abhor...yes."  
  
"Quite a thesaurus, mutt." Red returned, bracing himself to fight if necessary. He wouldn't stand to be insulted by a warmongering species of crossbreeds.  
  
The tail twitched, and Hel leapt. Red dodged to the side, and the Velociraptor slammed into the hull of the ship with its shoulder, then reared and let loose a roar that would make grown Irkens tremble behind their SIRs.  
  
"Don't fight, you two." Terra yowled, alarmed, "Hel! Do not attack him! Almighty, do not antagonize her!"  
  
"Her?!" Red asked incredulously.  
  
"Him?!" Hel asked, just as disbelieving.  
  
The heavily muscled dinosaur breed glared down the slight, bristling Irken. "Why am I not good enough to be a female?" She snarled, and her breath was rancid.  
  
"I'm not used to females being tall." Red replied. It was a half-truth, really. It was simply rumored that females did not grow as tall as males.  
  
"I am not used to males being brazen." Hel's tail flicked again, "On my planet, the males are slaves and do not speak out of line. For your brave insult, I assumed you were female."  
  
Red relaxed just slightly, nodding at the Ragnarok, and the creature returned the nod, her forked tongue flitting out from her mouth distractingly.  
  
"Now that we've solved some interspecies relations," Terra said, amused, "Are we ready to be friends?"  
  
"I would die a warrior and be received in Valhalla if I died fighting." Hel rumbled low in her throat, "But I have a brother to look after, and I would not want to leave him to the bartering of my friends."  
  
'I don't want to die. I have an Empire to rule." Red added, nervously, "So can-"  
  
The ship slowed, and Terra's ears pricked up, "Be alert!" He snapped, "They'll be coming for us soon." 


	4. The Spacefight

The ship Metal Conquest glided silently throughout the vacuum of space, with all the agility of a shark. Attack prongs were situated at the prow, and the port and starboard sides bristled with all numbers of weapons.  
  
Metal Conquest was designed as a battle-ship, created and reedited by the same geniuses who dreamed up the explosively destructive Front-line Battle Mech. Purple sat uneasily in the command chair, watching the stars and planets drift by. The ship seemed to be moving at a lazy speed, but he knew it was the illusion of space, where, with nothing to judge by, everything seemed slow and dreamlike.  
  
But they were being clocked at several millions of miles per minute, arcing through the sector of space that was gripped the most tightly in the Irken Army's fist.  
  
The inside of Metal Conquest was mostly deep violet colored consoles, with plush primrose seats, and amethyst carpets. The ship's sister, Triumphant, was completely satin ruby inside. These two, the private warships of the Almighty Tallest, were only used in times of extreme emergency, as they drained unbelievable amounts of energy from the Irkens' power supplies.  
  
Purple leaned back, trying to relax, but he felt jumpy and nervous. Every logical thought in his mind was advising against his endeavor to rescue Red, but his emotional side was a different story...  
  
"Almighty. The Massive is dead ahead." One of the soldiers intoned, his voice brisk and businesslike.  
  
Purple's eyes trailed up to the screen and fixed on the shell that was the Massive. He felt violated to the very core, seeing his ship--his and Red's ship--treated like that. The entire front section was gashed and scarred with weapon-fire, and all around it, like ants on a dead stag beetle, little Trill Scooters raced.  
  
"What are they doing?" Purple asked, softly.  
  
The soldier didn't respond for a few seconds, and when he did, his voice was hurried, "They are repairing the Massive and preparing to fire the Doom Cannon on us, sir. Evasive action...?"  
  
"Of course!" Purple snapped. What was he paying them for? To risk his life by asking such stupid questions? "And send out Runners to stop those Scooters."  
  
A tactical mistake, that was, and Purple realized it almost at once, "Belay that order." He muttered nervously, knowing that Irken Spittle Runners would not be able to survive against the more heavily armed and shielded Scooters in a skirmish.  
  
The Metal Conquest darted to the side, thrusters blazing, and turned back around, its deadly nose pointed straight at the Massive. The cannon of the Massive tracked them, and the soldier blinked, "Almighty, they have a lock on us."  
  
"Send out Runners to disable the cannon. They know we can't fire on our own ship." Purple swallowed. This leadership thing was awfully hard when one actually had to think. He was used to just goofing off, snacking and watching the Control Brains do all the work.  
  
He watched as several dozen Irken Spittle Runners disengaged from Metal Conquest, heading straight for the Massive.  
  
Lasers spat from the Massive, curving around to encompass six of the Runners in a wave of explosive destruction. The others curved upward or banked down, avoiding the deadly light as best they could. Purple silently cheered them on, watching one in particular, with a curved stripe down the side of it. Another of the rare Irkens who desired individuality: Arrow, an aspiring female pilot and one of the best in the fleet. Out there risking her neck in nothing more substantial than a Runner.  
  
The ship turned on its side, avoiding another laser expertly, and then pulled itself into a tight roll and broke off from the rest of the charging fleet, going in low.  
  
Several of the Scooters had decided it was a bad idea to let these things near their newly acquired ship, and were speeding in a relaxed knot towards the clump of Runners. Arrow's ship flew on unharmed beneath them, the black stripe painted on the side flashing triumphantly as it made a beeline for the cannon.  
  
Three more formed a rough triangular arc and slammed head on into three of the Scooters, sending up dazzling arrays of light as each soldier perished, dragging with him an unwilling Trill pilot. This was a grim but successful tactic: The Irkens outnumbered the Trill and could waste lives like water without consequence.  
  
"Come on." Purple whispered, watching Arrow's ship intently.  
  
Another darted beside Arrow, taking a shot at the cannon and then swooping away to line itself up for another opportunity. A Trill's Tachion beam flashed and the ship was nothing but debris.  
  
The Trill turned on Arrow's Runner, firing again. The energy clipped the side of Arrow's ship, sending the little craft spinning into a helpless dive, embers snuffing out in the deep blackness of space. The Trill headed down to finish the job, and another Runner appeared from above, firing lasers down into the Trill's engine. The Scooter exploded, and Purple breathed again, chewing on one claw nervously.  
  
The Runner that had been Arrow's savior flared forward, firing two controlled laser shots at the cannon, and instead of turning to line up again, sped forward faster and slammed into the cannon's mechanism. Two more repeated the gallant ship's action, and then another darted forward to conclude the suicide-run. The resulting explosions rained debris on the Scooters, and the Irkens turned tail and fled back to Metal Conquest, Arrow's ship bringing up the rear.  
  
Several of the Scooters paused, hovering near their now damaged prey, and then turned, their engines powering up, blue green streaks of light, and hared off in the direction of their home-world.  
  
"Follow them." Purple demanded, leaning forward in his chair.  
  
Metal Conquest turned its sleek nose toward the Scooters and began pursuit. 


	5. Planet Trillian

Hel braced herself, looking around left and right with her serpentine head for attack. Red noticed, with that special clarity brought on by fear, that her eyes never lingered in a spot longer than was necessary, and with her snakelike neck, she was able to twist her head a full hundred and eighty degrees to look behind her without moving her body at all.  
  
She would be extremely hard to sneak up on, he reflected. The Prince, on the other hand, was almost laughable. Though his balance had to be admirable to be able to walk on an uneven amount of legs, he looked so ungainly trotting around like that. Were it not for his wings, which he kept spread behind him at all times, he would surely have overbalanced long ago.  
  
Then the ship came to a complete stop, and the door opened. Red stiffened, his eyes darting to the doorway, and stayed standing completely still in the corner. He wanted to sink down to a sitting position, to huddle closer to the wall, but he feared that if he moved he would draw unwanted attention to himself. So he only watched as a Trill warrior entered the compartment and looked around.  
  
This was the first time he'd seen a Trill up close. He had seen many pictures of them, diagrams and such, but never a living, breathing one. Red had heard a rumor a long time before that no two Trill are exactly alike; that they were a race of biogenetically engineered mutants who rebelled against their creators several thousand years before, and took over their technology and planet to serve their own aggressive needs. He didn't know how much of that was propaganda and how much was truth, but he knew the viciousness of the Trill was almost legendary.  
  
The Trill in front of him was of medium height for their species, with a long, narrow snout and two swept back rabbit-ish ears. Markings of a tiger patterned the intelligent face, framed by wild white hair. All Trill had some cyborg attachment to them, as a rule, except for the lower-class soldiers: this one had a metal plate above the left eye, and the eye itself was a digital lens. The body of the Trill was humanoid and slim, but sexless--like the Irkens, the Trill were not engineered for gender, though also like the Irkens, their voices and personalities were similar to what one would dub 'male' and 'female'.  
  
He, for it seemed like a he, didn't look especially malevolent; he seemed simply to be looking around. Then his robotic eye fixed on Red, gleamed silver, and he grinned in a manner that lacked humor.  
  
"Red one. Co-leader of the Irkens. Will come with me." He said. Red's Pak translated the words for him with some difficulty. The Trill's language was a hodgepodge of different subsections, needlessly complicated, and full of archaic terms. But the Pak had picked a masculine voice for the translation, confirming his suspicions.  
  
Red was about to protest, but he caught Prince Terra's look, and the animal nodded significantly. Resisting would only worsen his position, or so it was assumed. He approached the Trill without pausing, and exited in front of the alien hesitantly.  
  
The hallway outside was not significantly drier, or cleaner, for that matter, than the slave-hold itself, as Red waited for the mutant to come out after him.  
  
"Down this hall." The Trill said, tilting his head to gaze down at him. Red started down the hall uneasily, his hands clasped in front of him. He would have traded his antennae for a handheld laser of any sort, and his left arm for the Massive in his control again.  
  
"Do you have a name?" He asked. The Trill was silent for a few moments.  
  
"Knell." Came the prolonged reply. Red wasn't sure if it was a term to shut up that the Pak could not translate, or the Trill's actual name as requested, but he seized the word happily.  
  
"Well, you know that I'm the commander of a very powerful army, and quite rich, too, right, Knell? I could give you whatever you wanted if you let me go. Monies, snacks, your own personal SIR unit...?" Red spoke as if to a young child, relying on his Pak to get his meaning across to the alien.  
  
Knell, if that was his name, did not respond. He simply continued along behind Red, causing the Tallest's hopes to die slightly. Perhaps there had been an inaccurate translation...or perhaps Knell was just clever and knew that Red was caught between the devil and a deep black hole, so to speak.  
  
"Knell, please. Consider it. If you returned me to my people, you'd be a hero." More like, executed for kidnapping me in the first place, but, same difference, really. He finished silently.  
  
The Trill continued his stony silence, then he stopped outside a door and opened it, shoving Red inside. The Irken, completely unprepared for the treatment, toppled forward and landed on his hands and knees on the floor as the door slammed behind him. He looked up, still a bit dazed, and gasped.  
  
The rumor about the Trill all being different was, at least, correct. 


	6. Metal Conquest Versus the Melody

Metal Conquest was in trouble.  
  
The ship weaved to the left, a plasma beam missing it by several feet, but it was clear that the fast pace at which the battle was going would not last much longer. Purple's orders had led them directly into the bombardment of the Trill's most powerful creation; the battleship Melody; and Metal Conquest was by far at a disadvantage.  
  
The laserfire they were exchanging with Melody seemed at best ineffective, at worst reflected back at them, and the Trill were practicing their usual aggressive tactics, shoving Conquest back further and further into their own territory.  
  
Alarms were blaring in Purple's command center, and he was beginning to panic somewhat. He had an eerie vision of this being exactly what the Massive had looked like from the inside before the Trill had breached it.  
  
"Get us out of here!!" He ordered, forcing authority into his voice.  
  
One of the technical officers glanced at him uneasily, "...Attempting to flee, Almighty. Which way?"  
  
"Any way!" Purple howled, hysteria taking him over again, "Can't you get a lock on Red and head that way?"  
  
"No," The officer blinked, "Melody has stopped firing, dropped her shields and has pulled to a dead stop." He reported, after a confused pause, "She is requesting an open channel..."  
  
"Let it through." Instructed the Tallest, clutching the arms of his chair with his claws. A screen extended from the ceiling to the front of the ship, and a flickering image slowly resolved upon it.  
  
"I am Tenor, captain of the warship Melody, commander of the fleet-platoon of the goddess Rhapsody." Came the Trill's arrogant voice. It, like all the others, was a mix of several different species. Tenor had gray fur, the sharp, angular bill of a falcon, and clawed hands. A lizard tail flicked out from behind him lazily as he spoke. "I am aware of Metal Conquest's inability to battle us. Do you wish to surrender to the superior might of the Trill?"  
  
"Disengage audio." Purple said. After a brief pause, when he was sure the Trill couldn't overhear, he spoke, "We're not going to surrender. We're going to power up our best weapon that can be activated without them knowing. Can we do that?"  
  
The officer seemed to consider the question, his eyes glittering briefly, "That would be the Pulse Discharge. It takes less than a minute to charge, but..."  
  
"Do it. Restore audio." Purple tapped the armrest of his chair, trying his best to look bored. "What are your terms of surrender, Captain Tenor?"  
  
Tenor couldn't manage anything other than a grin with his birdlike face, but he ducked his head slightly. "Unconditional, Irken Tallest. If you do not agree to become our captives we shall reduce your ship to scattered atoms. You have thirty seconds to signal your surrender. Tenor out." The screen switched to static.  
  
"Melody has raised her plasma shields!" The officer yelped, alarmed, "Our Pulse Discharge will not be effective against the ship while she is shielded from energy. It will be reflected back at us twofold."  
  
Purple frowned, unhappily. He didn't think Tenor could really destroy Conquest completely, but if he didn't obliterate Melody, he was certain it would return to Trill's orbit and alert the leader of the species that Purple was coming for their highest-ranking captive.  
  
"I have an idea." He said, thoughtfully, standing and crossing over to the officer, "Move over."  
  
"Almighty...?" The Irken sounded half-nervous, half-forced-polite, "You know how to pilot...?"  
  
"Of course I do!" Snapped Purple, "Don't question me, or I'll have you thrown out of the airlock."  
  
The officer moved with surprising speed, clearing a space for the Tallest. Purple sat down, reached out for the controls, and then glanced back at the officer. "This is similar to the Massive. Right?"  
  
The technical officer nodded slowly, and though his mouth was hidden, his expression read vaguely, 'Are you going to get us all killed, Almighty?'  
  
Purple chose to ignore the look, punching in commands. He decided that if he was to keep his underlings' spirits up after his little frightened outburst earlier, he had to do something very impressive... and truly, he didn't find this very hard at all. Simply logical reasoning born of desperation.  
  
Metal Conquest's engines flared to life and she dove down into the blackness of space, moving with surprising swiftness for a ship of her size. Melody was slower to react, Tenor having obviously assumed Purple would do the cowardly thing and surrender.  
  
Conquest was lost among the stars for a few seconds, the black exterior rendering it visible only by the occasional gleaming reflection of lasers that Melody was firing. The captain didn't know what Purple was doing, but he obviously didn't think it prudent to wait and find out. The lasers scorched the front of Conquest, who turned abruptly, nose pointed directly upward at the unfortunate body of the Trill's ship.  
  
The deadly prongs on the warship's prow began to glow, the first outward sign of their activation since Purple had ordered them be brought online.  
  
"Almighty, they have plasma shielding!! Our weapons will reflect!!" Screamed the technical officer, obviously frightened that he was going to lose his life at the hands of a forgetful Tallest who happened not to care about his own. But this couldn't be further from the truth: Purple felt terrified that he was going to mess up somehow.  
  
Purple waited only another second, still typing, and then he whispered, "Now."  
  
Metal Conquest's engines roared. The ship shot upward like a dolphin from the sea. There was a deep shriek of tearing metal as the prongs ripped into and through the energy shields, met with no resistance, and a split second afterwards, the Pulse Discharge fired deep into the center of the pierced ship.  
  
Melody exploded.  
  
Metal Conquest flew through the debris and remains, a thing of beauty still, despite laser burns all over her hull, and leveled out, gliding triumphantly toward the planet Trillian's surface.  
  
A resounding cheer erupted from all across the bridge; Purple smirked and wiped sweat from his face, meeting the officer's eyes again.  
  
The officer hesitated, then said, timidly, "...That was great, Almighty."  
  
"Thank you, thank you." Purple stood, making his way back to his command chair, and bowed, "Now. Direct course to Trillian. We're going to deal with the rest of these disrespectful upstart aliens and get our other Tallest back." 


	7. The Singers

"Greetings, Irken Almighty Tallest Red, number Six-hundred and Fifty-nine in the line of the Irken succession of Tallests." The Trill intoned, from the other end of the room.  
  
His bottom half was what appeared to be an anthro wolf of some sort, the clawed legs twisted in such a way as to allow for bipedal movement. A long, thick bushy tail waved behind him absently, and the wolf half cut off with an abrupt suddenness at a hairline on the creature's chest.  
  
The top half; an Irken Tallest.  
  
Gray eyes sparkled, metal-hued against lime colored Irken skin as the Trill smiled mischievously, long, three-fingered hands hanging limply at his sides, roughly lining up with the kneecaps of the furry wolf appendages.  
  
Behind him, an elaborate control deck, colored dark gray to white, gleamed: he was standing in the very center of bustling workers keeping the ship on course, complete with a control screen not unlike the Massive's.  
  
Red stared from his sprawled position on the floor. "You're an Irken!"  
  
"Not exactly." The hybrid began to approach, claws clicking against the floor, fingers flexing a bit, and Red noticed that he still had his thumbs. His costume was themed to match his eyes, like Red's was, a dull metallic gray that blended neatly with his wolf half. Where most Trill had six or seven, at most twenty mixtures, this Trill had only two, announcing him as a high ranking leader.  
  
"My name is Clef. You will address me with the respect that befits my station," He warbled low in his throat, "Singer Clef." He gestured to the corner of the room, and Red's attention wavered to follow the other's hand. A second Trill waited there, with the top half of a female Irken Tallest and the bottom half of a cheetah, almost Clef's double, though her frame was slighter and her height a little lacking. Her color was pure white, though her eyes were tinted with the faintest twinge of green to them.  
  
"Singer Treble." Clef announced, calmly, as the female Trill stepped out from the corner and stood next to him. Both of the Trill had metal around their throats: it was the Trill custom to sacrifice something to machinery, as it went, and their leaders were no exception.  
  
"But this doesn't make any sense!" Red protested, flailing for his logic, "If you were created so long ago by..." he trailed off at their uncomprehending looks.  
  
"You are unaware of the species' history that you are trying to conquer?" Treble inquired, her Irken voice making Red cringe, the harsh speech forced into the lilting singsong of her affiliated race.  
  
Clef grinned, something of the devil in his face and manner, and said, "The Trill were not created, not at all, Irken. We evolved from lesser animals. Our current-day appearances are not necessarily connected to how we came to be, however..." Something glittered in those slate eyes, "We were simple, planetbound peoples, unconcerned with conquest of anything on a grander scale than jungles and forests. Our core animal that we first issued from has been long forgotten, we have mixed so much with the others. We found what worked for our predators and took it from them. At first our attempts to graft their parts onto us failed miserably, but when our people became truly advanced we discovered how to seamlessly, flawlessly integrate their usefulness into us. Music was our only way to communicate with members who had different brains, and thus we pay tribute to it in these ways... as did the great first of our scientists who discovered the technology to fuse our bodies and implant our personalities into other species, the great Rhapsody."  
  
"You people are insane. You stole two Irkens and...and..." Red felt ill, "Dismembered them...?"  
  
"We did not steal them. They were prisoners of this war that you started with us over land, as though all planets were destined to be yours. We harvest our victories, you simply destroy and waste and pervert whatever you touch. Your species is backward and arrogant." The words were sung at him with fury, "Treble and I took these bodies in an attempt to beat you with your own strategies, and we now think like you. Our people fear us because we are the ruthless Tallest that you are. We are slothful and uncaring of other species, and it becomes hard to resist the childish temptations of your peoples' structure." Treble glared, "To 'snack' when you are already full, folly! To allow others to do work you could do yourself, laziness! To try to annihilate planets that you fear without engaging them in proper spacefight..." She sang the last word hard, "Cowardice."  
  
"You attacked us without warning, boarded my ship, killed my soldiers and kidnapped me!" Red stood, feeling fed up and angry, "If that isn't cowardice I don't know what is!"  
  
Treble began to reply, but Clef cut her off with an upraised hand, "He speaks of nothing."  
  
"Did you?" She countered.  
  
"We did." There was no emotion in Clef's voice, but there was great sadness in his eyes. He was terrible at keeping a poker face.  
  
"The filthy Irken is correct, then. My Singer Clef is a coward."  
  
"I am bound by the weakness in instinct of the creature I inhabit." Clef recited, dancing back a step with unnerving gracefulness.  
  
"That is a child's excuse!" Treble returned, "We could have destroyed their Massive without an ambush."  
  
Red snorted openly, and both turned back to look at him, Clef scowling and Treble unreadable. He smiled, covered with raggedy, ruined clothes and bruised all over, but still the ever-arrogant co-leader of the Irken race, "You couldn't take on the Massive if we had five percent power and no cannons, in a frontal, head to head battle." He said.  
  
Clef did not rise to the bait, annoyed as he was, but his antennae flattened back as a response to the open challenge. Treble simply watched him, gauging his words, and asked, "Where do you think you are?"  
  
"Who." Corrected Red automatically.  
  
"No. -Where- do you think you are, Irken?" Treble repeated, her tune wondering.  
  
Red paused, "A Trillian slave-ship."  
  
Now it was Singer Clef's turn to snort, "You honestly believe the Trill's highest ranking leaders would waste their time aboard a filthy slave-ship? You were in the slave's -hold-, yes, but right now, little one," and he stood a bit straighter, aware that his lower half increased his height dramatically, acting just as an arrogant Irken would, "Right now, you are standing on the main control bridge of the destroyer spaceship Stanza."  
  
This caused another pang of sudden alarm to course through Red: the Stanza was to the Trill what the Massive was to the Irkens: their leaders' vessel, nearly invincible unless snuck up on, as Red had discovered.  
  
Treble laughed musically from her position, watching the play of emotion across Red's face, "Afraid! As well you should be. We..." She stopped, turning her head to gaze behind her.  
  
A small Trill creature that seemed to be a mixture of a very tiny furry mammal was working the controls up front, and he was squeaking in alarm, none of which translated into anything Red's Pak could decipher. It registered it all as frantic bits of sound, cries and squeals, general hysteria.  
  
Clef followed his co-Singer's gaze, snapped a few sounds back at the fluffy animal, and a second later, the ship shuddered. Red saw the alarm written on the Trill's face, and smiled grimly. It seemed that a rescue team had come for him at last.  
  
'It's about time', he wanted to shout, but inwardly he knew he had been incredibly lucky to have anyone attempt rescue at all. In fact, had he been in Purple's position, he doubted he would have sent even the lowest ranking Irken on a suicide mission to recover a rival...barring, perhaps, Zim.  
  
Treble braced her paws on the floor, sinking to all fours, her back arching to compensate, and snapped in harsh song, "Hurry! Mount a defensive, now!"  
  
Before the creature at the controls could begin to squeak again, the ship did more than shudder. It actually buckled, tilting on its side slightly, and Clef, not prepared for any change of gravity, was thrown backwards into a control panel. He sat up, putting his stolen Irken hand to his head to steady himself, and narrowed his eyes, "Charge the ...." his meaning was lost on Red, as his Pak filled in that it didn't understand the term with a harsh burst of static background noise.  
  
Treble rushed to her Singer's aid, but he shook her off, muttering that he was fine. Red waited for an opportunity, hoping the Stanza wouldn't be destroyed before he could figure out a way off of it.  
  
The Stanza rocked again, and finally the screen focused on the attacker: Metal Conquest.  
  
"That's Purple's personal vessel..." Red whispered, "But why?"  
  
Before he could muse further on the implications, Metal Conquest released several Irken Pods, all of which approached the Stanza in battle-formation, thrusters glowing and weapons prominently displayed at their fronts. Treble hissed something that could have been a curse, slamming her claws down on the control panel as she watched the enemy ships come roaring straight for Stanza.  
  
"Beginning to think you might have made a mistake?" Red asked her, smugly. 


	8. Stanza Versus the Irkens

Tallest Purple watched from his vantagepoint as twenty Irken Spittle Pods approached Stanza, and not for the first time that day wished he had the Massive under his control.  
  
Metal Conquest was good, but she had barely been able to beat Melody, and Stanza was the Trill's absolute best machine.  
  
He kept these thoughts to himself, observing his soldiers, who continued at their posts as though nothing was wrong. Many of them seemed even cheerful, glad that they were going to engage the Trill in battle at last. They viewed Red's kidnapping as an open challenge to the Irken fleet, and were happy to answer that challenge with all their military might.  
  
And that is why, Purple thought, our species can never evolve past what we are. We are too militant, too focused on war as a solution to all our problems. And when we come up against a foe who is equal to us in military power, again our only resort is war. So what happens if we find a race that is stronger than us? We won't be able to fight them, and yet fighting is all we can do. So we will fight and we will lose...even now we are only holding our own.  
  
He gazed at Stanza, watching the gleaming gray spaceship with a hawk's intensity. It was shaped like a gigantic bird with the sloping head of a canine and the lower half of a snake, creating a very sloppy illusion of its maneuvering capabilities. The Irkens began firing upon the ship even as he turned his eyes away, unwilling to see if they would have to rely on kamikaze to get the job finished.  
  
Arrow was out there again in her repaired ship, but her flying skills had faded somewhat. During her last mishap she had suffered a cranial injury, and was operating under the guidance of another Irken fighter.  
  
And then Stanza launched fifteen ships from its own docking bay that could have been laughable if they weren't so dangerous. Shaped like mini-versions of Scooters and armed to the teeth with missiles, lasers and a special glowing type of red energy that surrounded them, designed to absorb impact from collision. They were piloted by infant Trill who were clever enough to fly them and small enough to fit inside; increasing the speed and agility of the ship that the Scooters couldn't match.  
  
The glowing ships approached the Irken Spittle Pods and began plowing through them. There was no strategy, no battle plan, there was simply widespread, chaotic destruction. Each time the ship slammed into an Irken fighter, the fighter imploded. Of course, these Spittle Pods had been packed with explosives to maximize damage, but this did nothing against the Anti-Kamikaze ships, who flew through the debris of the Irkens unharmed.  
  
Now the Irkens had to avoid not only their laserfire and missiles, but also collisions with them. Purple looked back up in time to see Arrow's companion swerving desperately to try to avoid being slammed into by a Trill ship, and almost losing control.  
  
His ship spun a few quick rotations before he managed to steady it, but even going at maximum speed, the Trill was slowly gaining.  
  
Suddenly, audio ripped through to accompany the visual; Red could hear translated Trill voices and desperate Irken speech together as they answered each other and flung taunts at the opposing side.  
  
"Hum, on you! Behind! Stay alert...I've got another one...!" A triumphant Trill voice, followed by the prominent crunch of an Irken ship's internal structure collapsing, then the alien mercifully stopped transmitting.  
  
"Fire on them first, the Stanza second! Their shields don't protect them from-" Another explosion stopped the Irken warning, but the words had been all too clear.  
  
Arrow's companion was somehow holding on, staying barely inches ahead of his pursuer, but even as he fought to stay alive, his laser turret rotated from the front of the ship and fired on a different Trill's ship, which promptly obliterated it. A resounding cheer cut through the Irken transmissions as they found that the foe's machinery failed just as easily as their own.  
  
Now it became an all-out skirmish that was fairly more even as Irkens broke off from firing at the Stanza and turned on their predators. Two Irken vessels branched off, one going left and the other right, and boxed in a Trill ship between them, taking it out ruthlessly.  
  
It soon became difficult to tell what was happening as a Trill arced to avoid an Irken, caught the attention of another who was frightened off by the Trill's ally, who was in turn forced to retreat by another Irken. But Metal Conquest drifted a bit further and picked up the number of Irkens in relation to the number of Trill, and the figures weren't encouraging. Seven of the twenty original Irkens remained, fighting off ten Trill. Their hesitation had been their undoing; they had lost eight of their originals by simply trying to avoid their enemy and keep firing at Stanza.  
  
"Do we have any more individual ships that we can spare?" Purple asked, anxiously.  
  
"We have five Irken Runners, but if we deploy them, Stanza may take retaliatory measures." The technician warned.  
  
"Do it." Purple said, his eyes still on the battle.  
  
"This is Beat, contacting Purple of the Irkens," announced a Trill's voice, and without warning, one of the mini-Scooters broke off from the battle and headed right for Metal Conquest, "And I am daring you to stop me if you can."  
  
The ship looked like a Chihuahua plunging into battle with a Great Dane, but it didn't seem to be bluffing or backing down, if anything, its speed increased.  
  
"We are the Trill and we will never be subverted!" Beat cried.  
  
"Evade him!" Purple ordered, but it was far too late. The Trill ship, shielded, did not explode upon impact, but the heavily fortified window that he flew into was forced to give, and give it did. At once a force- field designed to keep integrity inside Metal Conquest appeared where the window had been, and the Trill hopped out of his ship, a laser gun in his hand and a fearless expression on his youthful face. All sound and activity inside the main control room stopped as the technicians turned to stare at the little pirate in their midst. Like all Trill, he was a hybrid, but if anything he looked like a mini version of Tenor.  
  
Purple's observation was proven correct when Beat hissed, "My father was the commander of the warship Melody and you killed him, so I'm going to have to kill you."  
  
One of the technicians cleared his throat, pointing out to the midst of the battle, where the Irkens were rapidly making a comeback. Five of them were harrying two Trill, who seemed despairingly trying to return to their ship while trying to dodge laserfire. As soon as one broke off from the other to try a different way around, two of the Irkens would follow and exchange lazy, relaxed fire, cutting off its escape. The remaining odd Irken ship was Arrow's, who was busy taking free shots at Stanza's engines while her two companions dealt with the other ship.  
  
Beat simply stared for a moment or two, then he backed towards his ship, got back inside, and meekly hovered back over to the ruined window, slipped past the one way force-field and resumed trying to destroy the Irken pilots.  
  
"Good thinking. Whatever we're paying you now, we're going to give you double." Purple commended the technician, who seemed to grin.  
  
"Thank you, my Almighty!"  
  
"However, I am going to cut your pay in half for failing to dodge him in the first place." Purple finished, narrowing his eyes at the technician.  
  
"Yes, my Almighty." The other returned, a bit disappointed.  
  
As Beat's ship returned to the fight, Arrow swiveled on her engines, fired a few times in rapid succession at him, and turned back almost before her lasers found their mark and rubbed the little Trill out of existence.  
  
"Now, she is good." Purple said to the others on the bridge. There was a murmur of agreement from all sides, as most kept their eyes fixed intently on their screens.  
  
Less than a minute later, the five Irken ships, suffering no further casualties, had turned the Trill from dangerous to debris, and all five lined up to hover in front of Stanza, backed by Metal Conquest. A minute later, the five Runners launched and flew to wait below the Pods, basically just larger, meaner versions of them.  
  
Purple grinned around at his soldiers. As far as he was concerned, it was over, and the Irkens were victorious.  
  
"They're hailing us." A soldier announced.  
  
"Let it through, then." Purple sat back in his chair, the boredom not all feigned now.  
  
The screen resolved into a flickering image of Clef, and everyone on the bridge gasped.  
  
"If you are expecting surrender....Keep dreaming." The gray Irken/Trill managed, both legs sprawled out to keep his balance as Stanza continued at odd intervals to shake, something seriously wrong in her engines.  
  
"An Irken...? You butchers!" Purple was disgusted, gathering the meaning at once, "Return Red to us right now and we'll let you limp home for repairs, Trill."  
  
"Yours is a species with no honor: you lie." Clef responded, calmly, "As long as we have your Tallest you cannot fire upon us. Our ship's engine will rupture in seven minutes, or so my head engineer tells me, and when it does, it's taking me, my co-Singer, all my people, and your filthy leader with it." 


	9. Seven Minutes

At those words, Red turned to eye the door. He knew getting out of the control room wouldn't help him much if the entire ship was going to blow up, but he felt as though he had to do something.  
  
Clef was watching him now, those intelligent Irken eyes masking something like hysteria, kept tightly bottled and under control. Treble looked perfectly calm, serenely watching Metal Conquest from the window as her ship shuddered every now and again under her paws.  
  
He doesn't want to die, realized Red, Clef's gone native. He acts just like a normal Tallest would... just like I would at the face of danger. He wants to be as far away from this ship as he can.  
  
The silvery Trill looked at his mate uneasily; for all his bragging about being more noble, he certainly looked like he wanted to cut and run. "Can we not use the escape pods?" he begged, his antennae flattening against his head.  
  
"If our ship is to perish, we shall, with it." She never changed her position, kept gazing at Metal Conquest, "A Singer has a duty, and it is not to fail his or her followers. There is nothing more that is, nothing that was, nothing that will be."  
  
Clef backed toward the door, baring his teeth, "You can go quietly into the night... I will not!" Punching the control pad on the wall, he darted out between the doors and took off down the hallway.  
  
"Singer, Metal Conquest has deployed another vessel which is approaching the docking area." A Trill soldier remarked.  
  
"Do nothing." Treble commanded, "Allow them to board. They may die with us if they so desire."  
  
Red subtly moved toward the open doorway, waiting.  
  
"Metal Conquest is hailing us." The same Trill said, "Should I let it through?"  
  
"Yes." The Singer's voice was flat.  
  
The screen flickered, then resolved itself into a technician's face, the bottom half masked by his uniform. "I recommend you evacuate your ship rather than let your leader and ours die." He said, glancing down periodically at a piece of paper.  
  
"Is it not so that in the game of chess for a queen to die destroying a queen is a fair trade?" Asked Treble, quietly, "I do not know why you choose to try to change our minds. We accept our deaths. Our life-clock tells us six minutes. Soon this game will be over."  
  
The technician shifted uncomfortably, "We can replace our leaders. Can you?"  
  
"Our people will fight to the last to be free of you." Treble sounded distracted, glancing back to the door. Red was gone. "Hmm. My mate does not agree, however. He would rather survive with a chain adorning his neck to drag him down than die standing proud. And your leader has fled like a coward."  
  
"MY leader," The technician said with some degree of pride, "Is onboard your ship right now. We don't abandon our people so easily."  
  
Treble's eyes widened, "Your leader... Almighty Tallest Purple is here?! Now?!"  
  
The technician implied a grin with his eyes, and cut the connection.  
  
The Trill's Singer turned to the deck, "Sound the alarms. You must stop the Irkens from leaving this ship until the life-clock has ended, and you must do so immediately. Do not let them escape from us!"  
  
"Yes, Singer!" Ten voices chorused. Alarms began to blare all throughout the ship, and two hundred Trill dropped what they were doing and began to seek out Almighty Tallests Red and Purple. 


	10. Arrow's Song

"Deep in the black of memory waiting, twilight-like sky hanging overhead. My self is a service for my people, and is freely forfeit in their time of need. Beneath spaceship rubble embers, countless battle scars adorn me, given in service to my righteous cause. Everything for my Almighty Tallest. My heart (no longer functioning), my body (bruised and broken), my mind (a candlewick smoking). From my ship's computer a distant transmission from the Massive, as I sink into the cruel embrace of death. 'You have done well.' I die at peace."  
  
That was a poem from an old fighter pilot, recited and passed down to all Spittle Pod users, and at that moment, it was repeating itself in Arrow's mind. She wanted desperately to do something, anything for her Tallests, and she couldn't believe Almighty Purple was taking such insane risks to rescue Red.  
  
It should be her braving the inside of the enemy ship, facing down the evil Trill and single-handedly saving the Tallest. She waited anxiously, still in flight formation, and after a moment, contacted one of the technicians at the main helm.  
  
"This is Conquest," Came the reply, "Is there a problem, Pod Eight?"  
  
"No." Arrow fidgeted, "Have you received any orders for the flight squad from the commander?"  
  
"Negative, Pod Eight. Suggest you bide your time." The response only maddened her further.  
  
"But is there nothing we can do for them?! Suppose they both die? We will have failed! Our duty to our Tallest is with everything we have, and we wait and do nothing?!" She had forgotten that the transmission was live to all the other Pods, and found to her shock that they clamored in agreement.  
  
"Who is commander there?" She asked, "We want orders!"  
  
The clear voice of the technician who had broadcast the transmission to Treble and Clef came through a moment later, "Pod Eight, exercise patience, please. The Tallest has a plan. Remain alert for his orders."  
  
"I will remain alert." She mumbled dutifully, and returned her gaze to the ship in front of her. She wondered just how much time the two Tallests had left. 


	11. Countdown To Detonation

Red made his way down one of the halls, counting down seconds in his mind, and wondering just how by all the Tallests he could get his way out of this one. Seven minutes! And perhaps now so much less. He was wasting his time by wandering around. He needed a plan, but he was coming up empty.  
  
Forced to fall back on his resources had shown him that he didn't have very many of them. Red's eyes scanned the signs on the wall, all in sprawling Trill language, and wished desperately for a clue, a sign, some hint at what he should do next. He couldn't die like this. There was so much left to do, so many snacks to eat, so many underlings to boss around!  
  
He collapsed against a wall, slamming a fist into it feebly, at his wits' end. Adrenaline had worn off, leaving only jumpy fear and a terrible weakness. Resolutely he stood again, glancing back the way he had come. He heard noises from the corridor to his left, and curiously began to head in that direction. The hover jets in his Pak had long since been spent, and he was forced to walk, which slowed him down further. He knew he didn't have much time left, but there was a forlorn hope that perhaps those noises were the rescue squad...  
  
He rounded the corner and saw chaos. Irkens and Trill lunging at one another, biting, firing weapons, fist-fighting when one or the other got too close. All in all there were about twelve on either side, and no clear winner seemed to be emerging from the scuffle.  
  
One of the Irkens turned his head, alert green eyes fixing on Red, and exclaimed, "Almighty!"  
  
A Trill with the head of some kind of canine animal and long green wings headed for the distracted Irken. The soldier heard him coming and wheeled back, calling to the others, "Tallest Red is here!"  
  
What do they expect -me- to do? Wondered Red. Help them fight? I'd only get killed.  
  
A Trill who was trying to sink long alligator-like teeth into an Irken was forcibly kicked aside, and the Irken's rescuer turned, scuttling back on Invader-issued spider-legs, to aim a blaster and fire swiftly at another.  
  
It was Purple.  
  
"Purple!" Red called, taken aback that the Tallest was fighting, even more stunned that he'd take the same risks as his soldiers and actually come aboard a dying spaceship.  
  
The amethyst Irken turned his head slightly, eyes moving to the side to take in Red's bedraggled form, and there was a curious warmth in his expression as he laid eyes on Red.  
  
A beautifully sad song began to echo over the speakers, and several Trill raised their heads and answered the notes in their own voices, seeming to forget the Irkens were even present.  
  
It's a requiem, Red realized in creeping horror, a song of the dead... for themselves. They don't care that they're about to be destroyed, so long as they do it in proper custom and take us down as well.  
  
"Purple, we've got to hurry!" Red cried, "We're almost out of time!"  
  
"I've got a few Irkens in their engine room," Purple said, backing away from another Trill carefully, even though it was standing still and singing to itself in an ancient dialect, "They can give us a few extra minutes."  
  
The ship still periodically shook under them, letting out little creaks and groans of protest, and Red found it difficult to keep his balance.  
  
The Irkens had stopped fighting and were milling about in confusion. Their enemies didn't respond to their attacks, even if their comrades were killed.  
  
"My Tallest?" One of the surviving Irkens asked, "What should we do?"  
  
"Get back to the docking bay and get out of here." Purple snapped, before Red could say a word, "I'll finish up here."  
  
The Irkens scattered, running back down the hallway, obviously glad to be escaping what they knew to be certain death, and Red locked eyes with Purple.  
  
"Your personal ship. Your honor guard. Yourself. Why? Why did you take so many risks to rescue me?" Red murmured. Suddenly understanding seemed the most important thing in the world, second to survival.  
  
Purple was silent for a second, his eyes glittering, "I hoped..." He said, after a pause, "I hoped you'd do the same for me. You're important to me, Red."  
  
Red's face twisted with confusion. "I don't understand." The ship shook again, the squeal of bending metal signaling the weakness of the outer hull. "We should go. Now." He said, urgently.  
  
"Can you pilot a Pod?" Purple asked, "All the Runners are outside and occupied, but we have an extra Pod." His face indicated a known Irken of his honor guard had unwillingly made that donation.  
  
"Don't they have autopilot?" There was something in Red's question that suggested panic.  
  
"You never learned to fly one..." Whispered Purple, the implications hitting him. Pods, unlike Runners, were too cramped to seat two Irkens, let alone two Tallests. "You'll have to try."  
  
He grabbed Red's arm and headed back along the hall, past the oblivious Trill, and consulted his communicator, "How much time?"  
  
"Two minutes, no more." The Irken's voice was resigned to his fate, "We can't even get near the engine any more. Septen's already dead. He got too close to one of the unstable energy containers..."  
  
Purple searched for words, then mumbled, "You have done well." The formal goodbye for a dying Irken...somehow it didn't offer as much consolation as he thought it should.  
  
"Yes, Almighty. I'd advise you hurry." The Irken said apathetically, before the connection fizzled out.  
  
"This is insane. We're going to die," Red wailed in disbelief, "We're going to die!"  
  
"No, we're not." Purple hid his own fear and panic with serious effort, unable to believe Red was falling apart in front of him like a cheap SIR unit. He had always been the leader, and Purple the follower. What had the Trill done to unhinge him?  
  
He snatched Red's shoulder guards, "Get ahold of yourself, Red. We've always been there for each other, haven't we, and there's no reason that should end now. Come on."  
  
Red, half in a daze, followed the other Tallest down a hallway. Time no longer had any meaning, it was always the imagined second before the explosion incinerated everything and nothing was left but the cold vacuum of space, a few floating fragments of metal and shards of what were once brave Irkens and filthy Trill... He felt detached; still frightened out of his mind, but as if he was watching from somewhere far, far away, and the person he was afraid for was someone else entirely.  
  
The ship began to buckle backwards, slowly tilting like a dying animal, and from behind them, something struck something else with a hollow clang. Purple didn't look back, intently focused on keeping in mind the way to escape, but Red glanced back in time to see the far hall, very distant, with a viewing window at the end. The window was cracked, spiderweb thin lines tracing across its surface, each spreading and branching out from ten to fifty to a hundred hairline splits.  
  
"Purple..." Red uttered, voice shaky. The other Tallest's antennae flicked back, and he turned his head halfway. The casual glance turned into a double-take of horror, and Purple's hand snapped back to hit one of the buttons on his Pak. An atmospheric-decompression bubble formed around his head, but before it had even fully hissed into place he was turned back around and heading as fast as possible for the far hall, Red behind him.  
  
The ruby Tallest was reaching over his own shoulder to do the same when the window shattered completely. Purple stopped, whirled, and lunged, all in one split second, tapping the button on his companion's Pak with one hand, snatching the Tallest's arm with the other. Gravity shifted.  
  
The vacuum didn't follow the proper laws of physics aboard a Trill spaceship, as the ship had been designed to withstand any breach from outside. It did, however, act to try to suck out whatever it could. Purple could feel his two fingered grip on Red's arm, already feeble, weakening, and he heard his Pak beep, warning him of low power reserves.  
  
"Hang on..." He managed, neck craning back to look at the far doorway that led to the docking bay; not so far after all, but in the face of this emergency, it might as well have been the same distance as sweet Irk herself. Next to the door was an automatic button keypad that opened it, then activated a wall of reinforced steel not ten seconds after to seal off the passageway behind. Not as effective as the Irken force field method, but still decent. However, the button was by the door, and the door seemed inaccessible.  
  
He consulted the Pak's internal timer and felt his heart grow cold. Only two minutes, and every second that went by wasted them, every beat of his heart spent another second of life.  
  
"Red!" He screamed over the howl of wind, and saw Red look at him with uncomprehending eyes, "The button!" He gestured with a jerk of his head. Red's eyes moved to the door, and then to the keypad next to it, and his face lit with understanding.  
  
Red was thankful that the scientists on Irk had been experimenting with Tallest-issue spider legs. Thus far they had proven to be invaluable, especially when the two Tallest were actually called upon to do things. He only hoped they would hold up against what he had in mind.  
  
"Throw me up there!" He directed, slitting his eyes and calculating the distance.  
  
Purple braced himself, reasserting his grip, and nodded. He didn't have time to think about whether or not Red would leave him down there with a faltering Pak and no hope of survival, only time enough to wish he'd done more with his closeness to the other Tallest. Only time enough to wish he'd been more bold in his affections...  
  
He heaved Red towards the door, giving the Tallest as much boost as he could. Red's robotic legs sprang from the Pak, scrabbled wildly on the walls, and forced their way forward. He felt as though he was trying to struggle through a terrible nightmare in which he could only walk, painfully slowly, as his imminent destruction loomed ever closer.  
  
The legs whined and scraped on the walls, catching, clicking and releasing, bringing the door closer; three feet, two, one... Red reached out a hand for the keypad, waved it a bit, and forced the legs forward another inch or two. All thoughts of the ship exploding were pushed out of the front of his mind, though his heart kept time with rapid beatings of alarm. He struggled forward again, fighting for all the distance he could get, and his hand slapped the keypad. The door sprang open, and Red jumped towards it, fingers grabbing for either sides of the doorframe to hold himself there. He turned, gave one look to Purple, down below, mere yards from the door that could save his life.  
  
He made a fist, slammed the hand into the keypad, and heard it short- circuit. There would be no door-lock until the two could get on the other side to hit the adjacent pad, and it might cost both of them their lives, but if Red wasn't getting out with Purple, he didn't want to get out. He didn't know where that thought had come from at all, and wasn't sure he liked it, but he was moving even as he thought it all, leaning forward in the doorway, one of the legs extending as far as it could reach in a desperate bid to touch Purple.  
  
Purple reached out for it in return, his fingers clicked on the metal, trying to get a grip. Red strained forward another inch, hearing the rasp of Purple's claws on the metal, and felt his spine threaten to break in half from the pressure. He set his teeth, exhaling in relief as the other Tallest grabbed the leg tightly.  
  
He pushed back into the docking bay, struggling for every inch, and slowly but surely tugged Purple in after him. The other Tallest snatched at the doorframe, releasing the spider-leg for one heart-stopping instant, then managed to get inside. Red tapped the keypad on the reverse side, and the door reluctantly closed after them.  
  
There was no time to catch his breath, Purple was grabbing his wrist and heading for the two Pods at the far end of the docking bay, and Red was running as fast as his burning muscles would let him, unused to the effort and tiring quickly. The bay was all but abandoned, sparking wires hanging here and there, a virtual ghost-shipyard.  
  
As they approached the Pods, Red felt a sinking sensation in his gut. He couldn't fly a Pod. He'd never learned how. He was doomed; all the effort had been for nothing, and he'd be a martyr after all.  
  
"Get in, hit the black switch, pull the lever down, then hit the thruster-- that's the green pad--and use the steering controls: the little black joystick thing; to control it." Purple was yelling instructions at him even as he scrambled into his own and the Pod's opening closed. Red moved, clambering up the side and half-collapsing into the seat, gazing down at the foreign instruments as a child might gaze at an exam they'd never studied for in their life.  
  
His mind worked, pushed nearly to the brink of shut-down, but still trying, and he reached out gingerly for the switch. Then he paused, bewildered and with a sense of doom in his mind. There were three black switches, all side by side.  
  
A radio link bleeped in the cockpit and Purple's voice came over it as the Pod lifted off next to him, "The first switch on your left."  
  
Red touched it, then scrambled for the lever and tugged it down, glanced around for the thrusters and activated them, and then paused once more. The Pod hummed beneath him, lifting off next to Purple's, and the docking bay doorway, sensing movement, opened.  
  
Purple consulted his Pak, breathed in sharply, and then hissed, "Fifteen seconds!" But still, Purple's Pod lingered, waiting for Red.  
  
Red's Pod shot forward, turning slightly on its side and clearing the hangar doors, and Purple's arced out just behind him and to his right.  
  
The Stanza exploded. 


	12. All Is Well That Ends Well

The two Pods' engines screamed their protest, but there was no option to slow down as the Stanza's fiery finish threatened to engulf both ships and Tallests alike. The wave of heat sent both veering, near out of control, and it was all Red could do to keep it on a steady course.  
  
The radio link remained open, and Purple could hear Red's ragged breathing over the intercom. He took the time to speak, dodging past the debris of the earlier spacefight. "Calm down, Red. You're doing fine. Just avoid the remains of these ships and keep going at maximum speed."  
  
The inferno behind them was slowing, collapsing in on itself, causing a beautiful, though terribly destructive sight, reminiscent of a supernova.  
  
Next to Purple, Red's Pod darted away, brushing past debris with only inches to spare.  
  
"Fine, that's fine, you're doing good," Purple encouraged, "You can slow down a bit, we've cleared Stanza."  
  
At that, Red's Pod spun back around to face the remains of the ship, and through the link, Red jeered, "Ha, you repulsive Trillian inferiors! Gaze upon the might of the Irken Empire and tremble like the little snot-nosed Smeets you are! You did your best and it wasn't near enough! I guess I showed you a thing or two, huh?!"  
  
Only the cold silence of space and the hiss of extinguishing fires answered him, and Red's ship turned back around, arcing towards the Metal Conquest, the ruby Tallest grinning for all he was worth.  
  
Purple and Red both boarded only minutes later, and the concerned Irkens who met them at the docking bay rushed Red into intensive. Purple tiredly resumed command, waving his hand dismissively at the Irkens who insisted he accompany Red. He turned his eyes to the Irken technician who had taken over for him while he had been aboard the Stanza, and the Irken turned control back over to him with something like relief.  
  
He didn't recognize the Irken by sight, and frowned as the technician resumed his position, "What's your name?" He asked.  
  
"Spiv, Almighty." Murmured the Irken, checking over his controls and seemingly in his own element again.  
  
"Alright, Spiv. You're definitely getting a promotion." Purple remarked, "Take us out of here, back to Irk; top speed, and send a transmission out to Irk to retrieve the Massive immediately."  
  
The response was decidedly more upbeat, "Yes, Almighty."  
  
"And you can take command again," Purple stood up, thankful for his Pak's support, "I'll be back in a little while."  
  
He headed off down one of the branching hallways, leaning on the wall for a moment, and frowned to himself. He could have sent a different Irken down to check on Red, but he didn't want to. For some reason he knew nothing could be acceptable but him seeing the result of all his efforts. Even if it meant he had to keep upright when he'd rather sleep off his adventure for a few days.  
  
He entered the medical ward a short time later, glancing around, and his eyes fixed on one of the far beds. Red was lying there, awake and alert, with his arms folded over the top of the sheet. The Tallest glanced up at his approach, and then quickly averted his eyes.  
  
"Red. Feeling any better?" Purple asked, sitting down on the side of the bed.  
  
"Not too badly." Red said neutrally, "They say I strained a couple things, and I'll be sore for a week or so...but if you hadn't come back for me, I'd be much worse off."  
  
Purple winced and folded his hands together, feeling nervous. Any minute the questions of why would start, and he wouldn't be able to answer them.  
  
"It was really brave of you."  
  
The other Tallest's grimace faded slowly, to be replaced with a faint look of relief.  
  
"I guess." He acknowledged. Red was watching him, and the expression on his face was near-unreadable.  
  
An uncomfortable silence settled between them, and Purple took a deep breath. Now that the danger was past, the aches in his own muscles announced themselves, as did the strain of leadership and worry over his companion. But he felt strangely satisfied, as if someone higher had looked over his progress and smiled his approval.  
  
"Clef and Treble..." Red started.  
  
Purple flicked an antennae back in an unconscious gesture that roughly meant he was listening with his full attention, "Mm?"  
  
"They really loved one another." Red's voice was hushed, "I mean, a lot."  
  
Purple's pulse quickened. Was he reading too much into the statement? What did Red want to hear?  
  
He tried to keep his voice neutral, though it was difficult, "They didn't have anyone else. They were both the highest ranking leader."  
  
Red's expression didn't change, "Yeah."  
  
The amethyst Tallest heard the usually tough voice quaver a little, and saw Red's eyes glimmer. He felt struck anew with the urge to stop skirting around the problem and tell Red how he really felt. Even if it meant total rejection, humiliation, and the end to their friendship.  
  
"I came back for you..." Purple said, trying to collect his thoughts which scattered away like agile Pods, "...I couldn't leave you there."  
  
"And why not?" Red asked. His voice was harsh, to try to cover the emotions below, putting up the facade that scared Purple away all those other times, raising his defenses to protect himself.  
  
But Purple hadn't been intimidated by Tenor, and he was beginning to believe nothing could intimidate him ever again. His mouth worked for a moment, nothing coming out, because none of it was exactly what he wanted to say. "Don't you know?" He finally asked.  
  
Red eased himself up into a sitting position to meet Purple's eyes evenly. "I want to hear you say it."  
  
There it was. The blatant invitation that Purple had been waiting for... or was it? Was it just more of the constant battle that had been waged between the two for so long: Red attacking and Purple defending, retreating, then becoming bolder and returning for the cycle to begin all over. Was this Red's attack, mistaken for kindness after so many years of hostility?  
  
"I..." Purple summoned up courage, and the words he'd been holding back ever since he'd first laid eyes on Red issued forth without reserve, "I love you."  
  
Red said nothing for what seemed like an eternity, eyes locked on the other Tallest's face, and he felt, finally, as though he understood. Slowly, he lowered the mask of hostility. He hadn't wanted anyone close to him for so long, he'd seen firsthand what love could do. It was the strongest force he'd ever seen, and it was this strength that had intimidated him, frightened him, made him bristle like an animal whenever it drew near. But it hadn't given up on him, it had lingered on like a lonely phantom, waiting.  
  
Amidst confusion of these new feelings and a certainty that the only way he could mess it up was if he told Purple to leave, the ruby Tallest reached out and encircled Purple with both arms and leaned his head on the other Irken's shoulder. His antennae darted forward to touch Purple's, a gesture that was nearly instinctive, and slowly, Purple wrapped his own arms around Red, as if not daring to believe his own senses, that Red was, in fact, returning the feeling.  
  
Red felt warm and content, at peace with his choice in the soft embrace, and his head tilted back just a little to observe Purple's face. He asked the question silently, with his eyes, and Purple's head moved in a fraction of a nod.  
  
And aboard the spaceship Metal Conquest, gliding like a magnificent bird-of- prey amid the endless sea of stars, Tallests Red and Purple locked mouths in a passionate kiss, and knew that what they had would last forever. 


End file.
